Life is Tough. It’s Tougher if You’re Old . . .

~ Sandi Staton

So, my plan was to help Buck pick up all the limbs in the yard . . . lots and lots of limbs. Big limbs. Little limbs. Way too many limbs for a young person, let alone a shriveled up bag of bones. After thirty minutes of bending and stooping and sweat burning my eyes, I quit!

Not my thing anymore!

Will never be my thing again!

EVER!

I feel like crying.

NO! I feel like cutting down every blasted tree, pulling up every blade of grass and pouring cement!

Then I’ll cry.

A deep, overflowing river.

Long gone are the days of working in the yard from sun up till sundown, jogging twenty miles a week, cleaning the house from top to bottom, and working five days a week. Never again will I run up a flight of stairs, bend over and touch my toes, and press a hundred pounds.

Wait. When did I ever press a hundred pounds?

I’ve never been weak and helpless. I’ve always been able to pull my weight and somebody else’s too. Even as a kid I was strong as an ox. Stubborn as a mule, too. But we won’t go there.

I think you get my drift, especially if you’re where I am at the moment . . . old and tired and frustrated and discouraged and weak and puny and . . .

Stop! The list is getting too long!

When did it happen? When did old age wrap its bony fingers around my neck and choke the life out of me? When did it break my back? When did it chop off my arms and legs?

When I started jogging at thirty-six, I assured myself and everyone that I’d keep on jogging even in my seventies. I stopped at fifty-eight.

One of my many regrets. 

I did take it back up when I was seventy-one. But it was never the same and after my back injury, I had to stop. Even walking makes my back scream. But, occasionally I tell it to shut up and I do it anyway.

So, here I am. Wishing I could do the things I did five years ago and reality laughing like a crazed hyena in my face.

So, back to picking up limbs. Buck finished my job and is mowing, now. He likes to mow. And I’m happy he likes to mow. No. I’m ecstatic he likes to mow. Now, if he just liked doing laundry. And cleaning the house. And taking out the trash . . .

Since we no longer have a re-cycle pick-up, it makes a great wheelbarrow.
Hubby just emptied the trailer running over with limbs.
We’ve had so much rain that Buck got behind in the mowing. Having to pick up limbs first didn’t help, either. Who feels like squishing around in the wet yard picking up limbs?

 

Published by Sandi Staton

So, I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to describe myself to you, and these are the words jumping up and down in my heart: I'm just a simple human being living in a complicated, messed-up world. I speak my mind. I love hard. My feelings run deep. When push comes to shove, I stand my ground. Sometimes I push back. Sometimes I walk away. I've surfed the crashing waves of life that threatened to destroy me only to make me stronger. I bear the scars of emotional rape, sadness, and depression. I've walked the golden streets of churches and religion only to be disappointed time and time again. And as a result, it's taken me seventy-five years to get where I'm sitting today; a sinner saved by grace through the blood of Jesus Christ. I fell at the cross. I repented of my sins, and Jesus saved and washed me clean. I still fall flat on my face. I still get dirty as a pig in a mudhole. And Jesus still picks me up, dries my tears, forgives me again and again, and continues walking close beside me. No one has ever loved me like that. And no one ever will.